Breadcrumbs

Author: Rebecca Naessens

Toughest day of our lives… full and busy of work. All hands on the deck! Captain’s orders! (In other words, everyone needs to work on the bridge decks). Sections bolted in a straight line, plywood pieces for the decks put in place and a heavy pylon all set up to end the day with one bridge deck complete. Levelling took some time but it is more or less ready for launch. The other deck… not so much… It will need to be complete tomorrow morning but nevertheless, we are ALL EXCITED WAHEEEY for both deck launches over the piers. Doomsday has arrived.

FOUNDATIONS AND PIERS COMPLETE! A slight gleam of happiness and joy had soon become coldly clouded, by concrete trucks arriving but no formwork being ready. Despite the rainy start to the day, work shifted to top gear as the deck team started setting up both decks. Once the basics were set, all focus turned to the deck on the side where the pier was formed and ready. No impact sockets had meant that the team had to work tirelessly to tighten the most important bolts by a ratchet and socket. Slight havoc broke out as the team created the formwork for the bearing pads yet specific pieces were missing!

Despite the team working well for the day we have fallen behind due to a few issues with equipment provided

The rebar provided was not the type that we required or ordered and so valuable time was spent trying to ensure that we could still build safely with this rebar.

Also bolts to hold the formwork together were not provided and proved difficult to find the required sizes for our formwork. This also meant that a lot of time was wasted causing us to be unable to pour the concrete at the end of the day as planned.

This leaves us with more to do tomorrow but the team is working well as a unit and the organisation and communication of the group has improved drastically over the day.

A misty start to an otherwise glorious day, full of keen (yet slightly tired) Imperial students ready to push the GO button. Ignoring the effects of the late night world cup matches, our team fuelled up during breakfast and met up for a brief morning meeting. Our project manager (Winnie) with our Site Manager (Orrin) discussed the safety issues and the day’s targets. Fastening our safety boots, we shifted into drive mode and set out in various sub groups. A few of the team boggled their minds over the encrypted A3 drawings, whilst others spent their time working their muscles and tying the rebar’s.